The Coming of the Penumbral Age

Abstract

This article describes the coming of the Penumbral Period, and the fall of Western civilization. Historians view 1988 as the start of the Penumbral Period, when world scientific and political leaders created a new, hybrid scientific-governmental organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to communicate relevant science, and form the foundation for international governance to protect the planet and its inhabitants. But critics claimed that the scientific uncertainties were too great to justify the expense, and the inconvenience of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, and climate change denial spread widely by the end of the millennium. The year 2009 is viewed as the "last best chance" for the Western world to save itself, as leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to try to agree on a binding, international law to prevent disruptive climate change. However, in 2023, the leaders still refused to accept that what lay behind the increasing destructiveness of disasters was the burning of fossil fuels.